Essay on Zinn, Its a Wonderful Life and Fight Club

Blinded by the self-destructive American dream of “Marie-Antoinette music-rooms and Restoration salons” and “toilet sets of pure dull gold” most murder their morals and harm others in the process (Fitzgerald 5.91). Whether rich or poor two things can be assured: the poor want to be rich and the rich do not want

Only a couple of decades ago, hard work and determination guided people to obtain a piece of the opportunity America is all about. Lately there is a surge in having our fifteen minutes of fame and work less, buy more. There are Americans who feel that materialism is the way to obtain true American happiness. TV ads bombard the population with information on what is truly needed to be the best. All media outlets convey how to be more like the famous. Commercials inform on how this star uses this phone and this athlete buys this car. In trying to assimilate to others, some continue to spend even though they cannot afford it. In “Framing Class, Vicarious Living,

It shines a light on changes that stem from cultural hegemony that not only does it come from a few persuasive to the right area of an affluent individual but it can also come from the deliberate aspiration a half-conscience hopes which concludes little with class relations. Lears wanted to showcase how certain influential Americans have unintentionally changed their social results which in turn transforms their own class concept of cultural hegemony.

In Howard Zinn’s A People's History of the United States and Voices of a People’s History of the United States, he discusses a numerous amount of events that happened throughout the history of the United States. His readers are able to read about war, the middle class, common people working for change, struggles of the common people, present and previous struggles, Zinn’s hope for the middle class, the causes for wars, and how they affected others, his readers will also read about President Carter, Reagan, Bush Sr., Clinton, and Bush Jr. In his books, he analyzes these presidents and all of their similarities and differences concerning welfare, military affairs, civil rights, foreign affairs and the economy. Zinn also speaks upon the struggles

The materialistic nature during the twenties was everywhere. Some Americans embraced it and some attacked it. For President Calvin Coolidge and his followers it was embraced: “Sharing so visibly in the wealth of society, more and more Americans came to feel that the booming Coolidge economy was working for them”(Nash 379). The wealthy nation satisfied materialistic Americans and Coolidge became a prominent leader. For American writers, materialism was attacked and “they questioned the society that placed more importance on money and material goods…”(Nash 390). Leading to their fame in literature, the writers who were concerned with American materialism moved to Europe. Materialism lead to prominence in 1920s America just as it did in The Great Gatsby. Gatsby’s prominence is an aspect of how Americans used materialism in the 1920s. One way materialism is shown is through fashion.

Materialism is Terrible Americans tend to be materialistic people. We tend to judge each other by how much money we make we also judge by what we wear and what kind of house we live in. The character in the novel Into the Wild Chris McCandless, did not care for money or a nice big house. These things did not interest him into his pursuit of happiness. Materialism isn’t necessary to make people happy; Chris gave away his belongings and rejected his graduation gift and he still led a good life.

Consumerism has structured our economy for generations: living on a day-to-day basis has been fired in a web of buying and spending money on things that we do not need to survive. Kurtis, Kaplan and Bradbury all present liable information on consumerism, what it is and how it has conformed our society over the years. Bradbury uses his story, “The Veldt,” to show the fear of many on how our materialistic life style could eventually destroy us. Consumerism has been labeled for the success and virtue of America, along with the title of the “American Dream.” In the documentary, “The Century of the Self,” Edward Bernays was able to successfully drive out what the “American Dream” truly meant to everyone in America.

This type of consumerist culture is built deeply into the structure of American society. We have accepted, and expect, that every American family will include a flat screen TV, a collection of iPhones that we break as we please and replace for close to nothing, mass-produced, cheap clothing, and easily available food any time of the year. This advancement in the standard of living was not completely of our own doing. It was created partly through the exploitation of countries and workers who are years behind us in terms of economic development, and who we have stunted through our participation in their pre-modern labor

If Tyler Durden from Fight Club was sitting inside $340,000 Lamborghini Aventador, his hatred towards materialism probably would have driven him to accelerate the car right into the ocean. If James Twitchell was sitting inside of it, he probably would have just left the car in a parking structure with the keys still inside. Chuck Palahniuk’s novel Fight Club and James Twitchell’s essay “The Allure of Luxury “both take negative against the concept and phenomenon of Western materialism, where society indulges on luxurious items to the extent of being the focus of life. In Fight Club, anti-materialism is extremely prominent with the narrator and Tyler are focused on destroying the materialistic society with violence to restore a more primitive way of living. However, Twitchell takes a more moderate stance on materialism has rapidly expanded throughout the Western nations, questioning if it is beneficial or malicious. I believe that materialism is a very misunderstood concept that I will describe later in the essay. Before comparing and contrasting my view of materialism, we will first explore Twitchell’s essay, then Fight Club to first better understand their stance their concept of materialism.

Americans through the years of existence have adapted well to the radical changes throughout the world. Technology, independence and social equality are some of the diverse concepts the United States have adapted to and developed in order to become a more unified country. Our nation believes that it is exceptional when it comes to other countries worldwide. As can be shown through the popular reference to America as the ‘shining city on a hill’. The term “American exceptionalism” is derived from ideals held by many Americans throughout history. Different people have analyzed American exceptionalism through multiple literary devices. Works such as A Model of Christian Charity, What is an American and Acres of Diamonds illustrate the

Whenever I make these excursions, the question always arises in my head, why do people desire having so much of something? It seems like it is in the blood of Americans to want to be great and have a large quantity of something. It isn’t necessarily a superiority complex, but it very much seems like the definition of the stereotypical American dream to be able to say that “I bought 16 frozen pizzas for the price of 5!” While outrageous unless someone plans on throwing a party, people still purchase these products. Even me and my family is guilty of buying such goods from costco. In fact, whenever I go with my parents, who both emigrated from communist controlled Poland, I await their clichè quotes of wonderment from having so many products available. My mother told me of stories how she would have to wait in long lines to buy the simplest of products back in her childhood, and now, she can have them all for low costs. There is something innately unique and symbolic of American culture to have access to such gargantuan goods. It is representative of the difference between the cramped lifestyle of the old country, and the feelings of freedom that one can experience in a warehouse

American psycho is Ellis’ examination and critic of an American lifestyle that was too focused on consumption and maintaining social-economic pretenses.

While reading Fight Club written by Chuck Palahniuk, certain themes of Marxism and psychoanalytical ideologies appear all throughout the book. The book mainly focuses on the protagonist and Tyler Durden. Although there are other key characters that play a role in creating these Marxist and psychoanalytical ideologies, Palahniuk focus the readers attention on these two. The reader is introduced to these two characters in the beginning of the book, while they are standing on a building that is about to be blown up as a part of “Project Mayhem” which in turn is a symbol of the revolution led by the working class in attempt to defeat the upper class. Throughout the novel one can see recurring themes of the never ending struggle between classes,

Fight Club is about our postmodern consumerist society, and the novel specializes in the social stratification

The film ‘Fight Club’ follows, to some degree of accuracy, the archetypal paradigm of the apocalyptic guidelines discussed in English 3910. Specifically the movie mostly deals with the genre of the personal apocalypse. Thus, following suit in relation to such works as ‘Lancelot’, ‘The Violent Bear it away’ and ‘Apocalypse Now’. ‘Fight Club’, essentiality contains the basic premise of these works, that is the purging of one’s identity through extreme measures and crisis; to ultimately arrive at a personal revelation in the end.